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Is Carnival (CCL) Outperforming Other Consumer Discretionary Stocks This Year?

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For those looking to find strong Consumer Discretionary stocks, it is prudent to search for companies in the group that are outperforming their peers. Is Carnival (CCL - Free Report) one of those stocks right now? A quick glance at the company's year-to-date performance in comparison to the rest of the Consumer Discretionary sector should help us answer this question.

Carnival is one of 272 companies in the Consumer Discretionary group. The Consumer Discretionary group currently sits at #9 within the Zacks Sector Rank. The Zacks Sector Rank gauges the strength of our 16 individual sector groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups.

The Zacks Rank is a successful stock-picking model that emphasizes earnings estimates and estimate revisions. The system highlights a number of different stocks that could be poised to outperform the broader market over the next one to three months. Carnival is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).

Within the past quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for CCL's full-year earnings has moved 12.4% higher. This means that analyst sentiment is stronger and the stock's earnings outlook is improving.

Based on the most recent data, CCL has returned 9% so far this year. Meanwhile, the Consumer Discretionary sector has returned an average of 0.4% on a year-to-date basis. As we can see, Carnival is performing better than its sector in the calendar year.

One other Consumer Discretionary stock that has outperformed the sector so far this year is Norwegian Cruise Line (NCLH - Free Report) . The stock is up 15.1% year-to-date.

For Norwegian Cruise Line, the consensus EPS estimate for the current year has increased 17.9% over the past three months. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

Looking more specifically, Carnival belongs to the Leisure and Recreation Services industry, a group that includes 31 individual stocks and currently sits at #80 in the Zacks Industry Rank. On average, stocks in this group have gained 16.4% this year, meaning that CCL is slightly underperforming its industry in terms of year-to-date returns. Norwegian Cruise Line is also part of the same industry.

Carnival and Norwegian Cruise Line could continue their solid performance, so investors interested in Consumer Discretionary stocks should continue to pay close attention to these stocks.


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